One Night
by Amelia Friend
Summary: It was just one night.
1. Chapter 1

**So my first written fanfiction for a while. To anyone still waiting for 'Secrets', I admire your patience, and am working on it, I promise. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy my first Agents of SHIELD fanfiction.**

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It was just one night - one night of life affirmation, of '_I'm still here_', and of '_I'm still alive_' and of '_I'm staying beside you the whole damn time_', and it broke every rule in the guidebook, every boundary they had ever set between them, unconsciously or not.

The undercurrent had always been there - since they were just seventeen years old, away from home for the first time, so much younger than everyone else – so he held out his hand and said, "Fitz," and she shook it with the reply of, "Simmons".  
And from that they became two people, two organisms, so tightly wrapped around one another that at times it became hard to work out when one ended and the other began.  
Because they were more than Fitz and Simmons, they were even more than Jemma and Leo, they were FitzSimmons, they always had been and they always would be.

They called them the 'children' - even though Skye was technically younger, or so they assumed, her records weren't quite clear in that respect - they were the most _naive_. Or at least they _were_.

It really hit them that first night, the first night since ... since then - when it was dark and they were alone, separated from and yet surrounded by people - when they couldn't close their eyes because then they'd see and then they'd remember, and all they needed was to _forget_.

He needed to forget the way the wind ripped her away from him, violently twisting her into unnatural positions as she plummeted to the ground, to the sea, to her death.  
(_She didn't die, because he...they saved her._)  
The nightmares came strong that night.

She needed to forget the way his face distorted into something painful, muscles protesting as he continued his so futile attempt to force lab doors open with his bare hands – all the while screaming for her, screaming for her to _stop_, for her to stay in their new little home.  
(_She came home, because they...he saved her._)  
The nightmares came strong that night.

And so a few hours together, a few hours away from the nightmares was something neither was willing to give up - not that night, not any night.

And so in Fitz's bed (not room but) pod, in the near darkness, in the silence save for their quiet whispers, something changed, and their tight embrace curled up together, an embrace they had shared so many times before - in similar circumstances yet _not_, yet so definitely _not_ - merged into something more, into something so infinitely better.  
And so from two people, even those that were extension of each other already, they exploded - with touches and sighs and breaths and realisations of just how well they knew their best friend, their partner, the other half of their world.

They drifted into exhaustion as one and they woke up as one the next morning - Jemma's head on Leo's bare shoulder, needing the reassuring warmth that she wasn't alone, that she wasn't free falling 30,000 metres to her death, alone and terrified and cold; his arm wrapped tightly her naked torso, as if should he loosen his grip for even just a moment, she would be ripped from his grasp yet again; their feet so entangled with the other that it wasn't entirely clear by inspection alone which limbs belonged to each half of the duo.

They don't discuss it that day, or the next, or the next.  
Because they're not fixed - not completely, not by a long way - but they're getting there, and the rest of the team knows it when they have to hide a collective smile over the two of them discussing scientific theories most people will never hear of, let lone understand or try to implement, over Shreddies and Cornflakes, far too early for normal people to be functioning without the heavy application of caffeine.  
They're not fixed, but they're getting there.

They may not discuss it, that night, ever, but it does cause a shift in their dynamic, not as fast as one would assume, but a definite shift - because they're not the same as they were.  
They're different.  
They're _better_.

So if his glances lasted a little bit longer, and her touches lingered just slightly too much, well no one had to notice (of course everyone noticed, they lived on a bloody plane with a bunch of _actual_ secret agents - nothing really stayed secret for long) but no one had to say anything.  
Because they were more than Fitz and Simmons, they were even more than Jemma and Leo, they were FitzSimmons, they always had been and they always would be.

It was an impulsive buy made when her subconscious was screaming the answer and she was doing her best not to listen - to ignore that little voice in the corner of her mind.  
It took two weeks and four false starts before she managed to use it as she was supposed to, and by that time two and a half months had passed since that one night, that one night that hadn't been repeated.  
Yet.  
Though between looking down at that little piece of white plastic, and wondering how something so tiny could change so much, she knew one thing for certain.  
Of course, it was never just going to be one night.

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**Thank you for reading, and please review,  
Mia**


	2. Author Note

**So this'll be deleted in a day or two - it's just to tell everyone who's following, that this story is finished, but I've posted the first chapter of the sequel - it's called 'After', and will be six chapters long - so you can all go and follow that one.**

**Okay. Bye!**


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